This book could not be missing in
the library of the researcher, of the curious, of everyone who wants to deepen its own knowledge on the instruments of scientific calculus of the past and also to surprise with a special
gift.

Giovanni Pastore
(1954, Rotondella - Basilicata, Italy), received his degree with full
marks in Mechanical Engineering at Turin Polytechnic University in 1978.
Even before graduating he was offered a contract at Fiat Mirafiori in
Turin, where for the following five years he worked at the automotive
design office, dealing with structural calculations.
He was a reserve officer with the Army Corps of Engineers at the plant
of ex-combat vehicles
STAVECO at Nola (Naples, Italy), appointed with
the task of the revision and testing of tanks (Leopard and M113). Some
years later he was recalled to duty, at the same plant, for technical
updates and degree advancements.
He has lived and worked in Policoro (Basilicata, Italy) since 1982,
where he works as a freelance engineer and Professor of Mechanical
Engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at several Italian
universities.He has published numerous scientific articles and books:
Gli infortuni domestici. Come
prevenirli
(ISBN 9788890471506), Antikythera e i regoli calcolatori (ISBN
9788890471513), Il Planetario di Archimede ritrovato (ISBN
9788890471520), Pitagora nel mondo contemporaneo. Influenze della
filosofia scientifica pitagorica nel mondo moderno e contemporaneo
(ISBN 9788890471537) and The Recovered Archimedes Planetarium
(ISBN 9788890471544).

LECTURES, CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS

ARCHIMEDES
AND ANTIKYTHERA PLANETARIA ADVANCES MODERN
SCIENCE OF TWO THOUSAND YEARS

ABSTRACT - The Greek astronomic
calculator, discovered in the deepness of the sea in a naval wreckage of the I century
BC in front of the island of Antikythera, is the most amazing among the archaeological discoveries of last
century. The mechanism, immediately appeared like a device out of its time, after years of
study, is provoking a discussion between scientists and archeologists because of the complexity and the modernity of the scientific acquaintances the work
presupposes. Its epicyclic gearings show the high level of the scientific culture reached in that
period.
The knowledge of the planetary motion, necessary to the design of the epicyclic gearing of the
Antikythera calculator, makes to presume that any greeks scientists knew the planetary motion of the celestial bodies and could have achieved the same results reached in modern era.
The scientific value of this gear mechanism is indisputable because the inventor of the
Antikythera calculator could have anticipated of 19 centuries the results of the universal gravitation law formulated by Isaac Newton in the 1687
(Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica), that anticipated and used the heliocentric theory proposed by Niccolò Copernico in the 1543
(De revolutionibus orbium coelestium), and anticipated the kinematic study of the epicyclic gearings published by Robert Willis in 1841
(Principles of mechanism).

In July 2006, during a digging in the public square of the Civic Market in Olbia, a fragment of a 43 millimeter gear wheel was
found. The Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici of Sardinia has dated the find and all the digging from the end of the third century to the beginning of the second century BC. The teeth of the gear seemed of triangular
profile, like those of the Antikythera Planetarium, which was till then a unicum on the plan of the archaeological
evidence. However, the classic literary sources (Cicero, Ovid,
Lactantius, Claudian) say that another much more ancient and extraordinary
Planetarium, was built by Archimedes in the third century BC.
The recent restoration has revealed instead a very important surprise: the teeth are not of triangular form like those of the
Antikythera Planetarium or the other mechanisms realized in the following
centuries, but curves, that is very similar to those of the modern gears. The conjugated profile of these gears is the result of accurate and deep mathematics studies formulated by eminent scientists of ‘600 and ‘700. Also the unusual composition of the
alloy, more appropriate for the best mechanical and technological
properties, has been an unexpected surprise.
The gear turns out therefore to be more scientifically evolved, although realized before all the other mechanisms which have reached us so far. This induces us to think that it was conceived and realized by a brilliant
mind. Considered the perfect agreement between the scientific evidences and the
historical, literary and archaeological outcomes, we may conclude that the fragment of Olbia made integrating part of
Archimedes
Planetarium.

The author is at
Universities, Schools and Institutions disposal, to agree upon the dates on explicit
invitation, to present with lectures, conferences and seminars the results of the studies till now
achieved.Giovanni Pastore
Tel. +39 0835 980530 -
info@giovannipastore.it

The Danish National Research Foundation's
- Centre for Black Sea Studies
University of Aarhus - Building 1451, DK-8000 Århus C.Aarhus (Danmark) - 11/14 January 2007

Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism - Science and Technology in Ancient Greece
National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation
Under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture of Greece
Theatre of the National Bank of Greece Karatzas Building, 82-84 Eolou street, central Athens Athens (Greece) - 30 November, 1 December 2006

3. Greifswalder Symposium for
the development of computing technology and
12. International meeting for slide rule and calculating machine collecting tank
IM2006
from September 28. - October 01.2006
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science to the "Ernst Moritz Arndt"
Greifswald University - Germany
Wissen lockt -
550 Jahre Universität Greifswald